DOUBLE ENTRY How the merchants of Venice shaped the modern world – and how their invention could make or break the planet

How did a system that was devised in 1494 Venice by a monk now offer perhaps the best chance of solving the current biodiversity crisis the world is facing?

Double Entry is the result of Jane Gleeson-White finding herself in the unusual position of pursuing an internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice and an economics degree with accounting, where she discovered the two were most unexpectedly and inextricably linked.

The wealth of the Renaissance that made possible its great art was underpinned by a new form of bookkeeping now known as double entry, which was codified and published in 1494 in Venice by Luca Pacioli, a monk, mathematician and magician who also taught the art of linear perspective to Leonardo da Vinci.

Fast forward to 2011 and double entry bookkeeping underpins the entire global corporate world. And not only the corporate world, as through the Great Depression and Second World War the United States and British governments used it to provide a map of their national wealth.

Now known as GDP accounting, this system was adopted by the rest of the world in the 1950s and 1960s and these figures determine how we value the wealth of our nations. GDP figures have become so powerful and so sacrosanct that the ritual around their announcement in Washington rivals the election of a new pope in Rome.

The archaic anomalies they give rise to – such as their decree that a tree has no value until it is cut down; that environmental goods are free – led Guardian journalist Jonathan Watts to write in October 2010:

‘So it has come to this. The global biodiversity crisis is so severe that brilliant scientists, political leaders, eco-warriors, and religious gurus can no longer save us from ourselves. The military are powerless. But there may be one last hope for life on earth: accountants.’

The rise and metamorphosis of double-entry bookkeeping is one of history’s best-kept secrets and most important untold tales. Double Entry tells it for the first time.

Jane Gleeson-White - Allen & Unwin - $36.99

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jane Gleeson-White has worked as an editor, writer and reviewer in Sydney and London since completing her degrees in economics and accounting, and English and Australian literature, at the University of Sydney in 1987. She also worked as a student at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, where she studied Byzantine, early Renaissance and modern art. Her first book, Classics, was published in 2005, and her second book, Australian Classics, in 2007. She is currently the fiction editor of Overland literary journal and a PhD student at the University of New South Wales. She blogs about books at http://bookishgirl.com.au. She has also edited many Australian books.